Book Club Invitation - Stanley Payne's Collapse of the Spanish Republic, 1933-36

Stanley Payne's The Collapse of the Spanish Republic, 1933-1936: Origins of the Civil War

Many of you are very familiar with my obsession regarding the Spanish Civil War which lasted from 1936-39. This war hosted the greatest ideological showdown of the first half of the 20th century as it pitted anarchists against monarchists, communists against fascists, and so on. And not only was it an internal conflict. Outside forces also aided their proxies, with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy supporting the Nationalists, while the Communist USSR and Mexico as well came to the aid of the Republicans.

This conflict also spawned quite a bit of excellent art, from Picasso’s Guernica, to Orwell’s ‘Homage to Catalonia’ and Hemingway’s ‘For Whom the Bells Tolls’ (which was later made into a movie). Everyone had an opinion on this conflict, and everyone took to their own favourites.

Beyond this ideological royal rumble, the Spanish Civil War is also a testament as to what happens to a country when the centre can no longer hold, and two equal extremes are pulling it apart. Payne’s book (written in 2006) focuses on the three critical years prior to the collapse of the Republic, from the resurgence of conservative and nationalist forces who wrested power away from liberals and the left by way of winning an election in 1933, to the military coup d’etat in 1936.

We readers will witness the growing political temperature, the increasingly hyper-partisan tone of the press, the rise in political violence, and the growth in the rejection of liberal democracy as a ruling system by various sides. We will also learn about the failed Asturias Rebellion by workers (mostly miners) in 1934, that was put down by a young general named Francisco Franco.

There are plenty of wild characters that you will be introduced to, and more than enough parallels to the present-day USA for you to draw.

I invite everyone on my mailing list to come join this Book Club and participate in the discussion that follow. I will go lighter on excerpting the content than I did in the previous book club that we just concluded, and instead try to round out the picture. The strategy is to cover two chapters per week.

If you are interested hit the ‘subscribe’ button and you can join for $5/month or $50/year. I will launch this book club the week after next week so that people who order the book can have it in time to join us. For those who can’t afford the book, I am happy to lend out copies if you do subscribe.

Feel free to ask questions or leave comments below.

In the meantime, here’s a teaser: the first episode of the fantastic 1982 UK Granada TV documentary series “The Spanish Civil War”. It covers the subject of this book rather well.